The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

LIFE
totally inconceivable unless its course had been indicated in
advance, by the reigning influence of cosmic purpose. For
these writers, the end or final purpose of evolution must be
the active controlling force of the whole process. The process,
at basis, could be understood only as the direct effect and
evidence of the will of God.
Another solution was proposed by Richard Goldschmidt,
who became the leader of the anti-Darwinians. He renewed
the emphasis on major or macromutations. As Dodson
puts it:
. . . Goldschmidt believes that the neoDarwinian theory places
too great a burden upon natural selection, and hence that the work
of selection must be shortened by some other process, namely sys-
tematic mutation (115:299).
mutation* '
By "systematic is meant a mutation that changes
not merely an individual trait of an organism but a whole
complex of traits, that is, that changes a basic principle of
the biological system. The great advantage of Goldschmidt's
theory is that it may greatly reduce the number of "genes"
required to account for the traits of a single individual.
Under present concepts of genetics, for example, from 5,000
to 15,000 "genes" may be called for to account for all the
traits of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, while as many
as 120,000 may be required for man (115:245). The gene it-
self, of course, since it has never been identified under the
microscope, and since its structure and mode of functioning
are entirely unknown, must still be classified as a useful scien-
tific assumption, rather than as a verified entity. The present
state of gene theory is roughly analogous to the state of
atomic theory before the development of subatomic physics.
Then the atomic theory was accepted because it worked in
practice, but nobody knew what an atom was. Today, we
know only that some sort of unit like a gene seems necessary.
The majority of writers on evolution today seem to feel
that Goldschmidt's specific arguments for macromutations
have been refuted. I can contribute no opinion on this tech-
nical question. But, from my point of view, the most signifi-